So... tell me about yourself

by Laurinda Shaver

Don't you love that question at an interview, networking events or even parties?

"So.. tell me about yourself?"

What is your answer? Do you have an answer?

Many people call it the elevator speech. That 30 - 60 statement that is suppose to perfectly position you in someone's mind. Its vitally important to get it right, but yet so many people get it wrong. Here are some tips to think about:

1. Its actually not about you.
Well sorta. Its about how YOU can help the other person. Do you give the other person a clear idea of WHAT you can do to help them?

2. Listen.
You can learn a lot be simply letting the other person talk. How do you know if you can help them if you don't know what they need?

2. Don't give me 3 million details.
People generally don't remember details given verbally. (unless it is a really AWESOME detail) The point is to leave an idea or impression on a person's mind. When they walk away from you, how do they position you?

• "That's the guy who can help me with my website."
• "That's the girl who builds communities online."
• "That's the guy who actually knows what SEO means and how it can increase my sales."

3. Paint a picture.
There is nothing like storytelling. If you describe a scenario, give an example, talk to a situation people follow along quite well.

4. Smile.
Don't take yourself too seriously. Meeting new people is just like a date. I check you out, you check me out and lets see if there is something in common. No person is above the other.

5. Be nice.
Obvious? Maybe. But think about the times when you have met someone and they were checking out the rest of the room instead of listening to you. Or they didn't have basic manners to say "goodbye, it was nice to meet you." Be courteous.

Do you have anything to add? Got a story about a good and/or bad initial meeting? Please share!

Tweeting to professional success?

Where does Twitter live for you in the professional networking world? What role does it serve? Quick personal daily updates, provocative thoughts, stream of consciousness, developing a fan club, sharing interesting items, self promotion? Is Twitter about putting ideas out there with the goal of creating interaction and dialogue and positoining yourself in the world of the web, or is it about voyerism and narcisism? Which leads me to wonder, in what professional network is it deemed truly acceptable to promote yourself in a direct, shameless way. Is there a channel for this? Where will this ultimately aggregate?

Yes, people have made connections through Twitter that have led them to find a job. Yes, people have developed contacts through Twitter that have helped them build their business. But it all feels a little random still in terms of where this channel lives in the networking ecosystem online. If Facebook is for personal use and LinkedIN is for professional networking and updates then Twitter is still a relative novelty in its model alone I think. People are addicted to the public, 'levelled' access to all Twitter enthusiasts-- celebrity and anybody. You can find them all there.

We need to give some concentrated thought to our online profile in its aggregate and the overall message we are sending out to the world about who we are, how we think and what we do. And, in some instances... why they should care. If we leave it up to the collective digital thumbprint we may find out that people are getting the wrong impression. We need to do the work to stage, protect and control (to a certain extent) our professional profile and then manage it diligently.

Social currency. How full is your bank?

The art of conversation. High value networking. Quality interactions. Meaningful relationships. Great buzz words but really not well executed in day to day business relations. We need to take care in managing each and every impression and connection that we make with colleagues. Great impressions + authentic interactions = social currency. At the end of the day our reputation and our network and human relationships is what will make you or break us in business. Take a moment to think about whether you are building or losing currency. How full is your bank?

Check out www.knowyourcharacter.com to learn more about your professional style and character.

Marketing yourself (part 2). Your approach to market

This is a follow on to an earlier post Marketing Yourself, the A, B, Cs that focused on what I described as Part One of the A, B, C's of marketing yourself. Today I want to chime in on Part Two which is YOUR APPROACH TO MARKET. Individuals looking for their next position or looking to bolster their profile and build their networks can draw from the fundamentals followed by companies launching new products or brands into the market. You need to understand what your brand is and then you need to manage that brand impression in every media-- when meeting someone for the first time at a cocktail party, when in a meeting or on a conference call, when promoting yourself on your bio, resume or speaking at a conference, when managing your professional profile online. It all matters and it requires a plan and ongoing management and maintenance. Every interaction is an opportunity to make a great or an average impression (let's hope not a bad impression!).

To start you need to think about your goals. Are you in launch mode, build mode or sustain mode? Typically if you are at the early stage of your career you are in launch or build mode. If you are at a mid career stage but are shifting careers you will drop back to launch mode.

For online you will want to ask yourself how much of your profile do you want to be publicly available online? This will dictate your online, professional networking strategy with sites like http://www.linkedin.com/ and http://www.videobio.com/ . Do you want a video to add a level of personalization to your brand? Are you an entrepreneur who is constantly promoting something and seeking new networking connections? You may want to look at http://www.twitter.com/ for sharing daily updates on what you are up. Think carefully about how you use http://www.facebook.com/ as a professional networking tool as it is most commonly used for social / personal networking and it is important to keep your personal and professinal brands separate.

Stay tuned for more marketing yourself a, b, c's.

Find Your Favourites Faster with RSS and Social Aggregators

So you have finally figured out how to build your social networks online and are starting to tap into the ways of the web for research, but do you find it difficult or tiresome to keep track of your social networking accounts and other content feeds? Here are some services that will keep you connected to all of your online favourites quickly and easily.

FriendFeed merges content from your existing social networking accounts into a single feed. Its clean layout and simple functionality allows users to access their bookmarked news articles, recent blog posts, video, and other content from sites such as Digg and YouTube on a single page – perfect for the media junkie on a tight schedule.

A similar service comes from Yahoo! Pipes giving users the ability to manipulate and merge content from multiple RSS feeds into a single feed. Ideal for organizing content from multiple news sources or blogs, Yahoo! Pipes offers a number of interactive features including feed customization, web badges, and geo-coding to display content sources on an interactive map. Go ahead and get organized online.

User-Generated Content vs. Online Advertising

While companies continue to move their advertising dollars online and away from traditional media, there are growing concerns over User-Generated Content (UGC) and how it can affect the image of their brands. Studying the trends in ad spending on such sites, eMarketer projects modest growth over the next few years; but can online advertising find a sustainable presence on social networking sites originally tailored to connect and create open interactivity between end-users?

As the leading online advertising company, Google has reported better than expected earnings, while News Corp’s stock has been downgraded due to the poor performance of its property, MySpace. This dichotomy can be attributed to many marketers’ reluctance to place their brand alongside unpredictable or questionable content. Interactive technologies and online platforms continue to grow, but can advertisers seamlessly adapt and integrate their messaging at the same rate?

Nielsen Online has recently introduced VideoCensus, an online video measurement service used for demographic research. According to preliminary findings, women are more likely to visit network television websites, while men are drawn to consumer generated media. This method of online consumer measurement may prove especially useful in niche marketing, especially in terms of branded video content or communications directed specifically to women.

One model for the future of communications comes from Casaleggio Associati, which outlines the eventual transformation of the web and its effect on old and (relatively) new media. This hypothetical provides a blueprint for corporate and business communications in the developing digital frontier. Through consolidation, online advertisers may better control the manner in which their message is presented.

If and when technology reaches the point in which online advertising is determined by the end-user, it becomes the responsibility of the marketer to understand how and why the consumer interacts online. This can be seen as a challenge, but the application of emerging technologies may prove to be an important asset for companies looking to reach users.

Networking best of....

After reading Never Eat Alone, by Keith Ferrazzi, my favourite 'go-to' book on the art of networking successfully, I was struck by the conscious thoughtful process that was attached to each and every interaction that Keith had described. As one of North America’s pre-eminent relationship builders, Keith was someone I have wanted to meet for some time and was fortunate enough to interview him for our 5 Minutes With feature article in April's Market Yourself Smarter newsletter.

I have always felt that networking is one skill that most business people haven’t mastered (including myself!) and when you read Keith’s book, you will understand why. Keith had many interesting things to share in our interview but the two main take away's for me were:

• the importance of connecting with transparency and generosity and with the intent of developing 'intimacy' in a relationship
  
• looking at building a relationship as a pipeline, where technology is one medium that can be employed to connect

Keith talked about Bill Clinton, someone Keith knows, and his ability to be sincere in ever interaction and make you feel like you are the only person in the room. Hey, if Bill Clinton can do it.... (make the time for it).....

Expand your profile with Facebook applications

Facebook has made it easy to connect and communicate with almost anyone online, including old friends, local artists, and co-workers. Most of us who have signed up to the site are familiar with the more popular second-party applications available, and have been inundated with requests by friends to join – everything from buying virtual drinks for friends or creating profiles for your pets. After a while, the influx of requests can get a bit overwhelming, if not annoying.

Some applications, however, prove to be quite useful in building your professional profile, showcasing original work and tying together personal profiles from other sites. Do you have a blog, make purchases online, or bookmark your favourite business or news articles? There are specific Facebook applications available to showcase and integrate these elements into your own profile.

Digg, for example, offers an application that automatically updates your bookmark list every time you submit an article to the site. Similar applications, such as the Blog RSS Feed Reader developed by William Web Design, updates feeds from secondary sources, displaying recent posts from a subscribed blog directly on your Facebook profile.

Get Facebook working for you.